After graduating from high school, Bernardo Cubria wanted to be a revolutionary.
Instead, he wound up shaking things up on the theater stages at the University
of Houston and around town.

Now, the UH School of Theatre & Dance alumnus is teaching the magic of
stagecraft to Houston high school students as part of the summer fine arts
program “Exploraciones Dramaticas,” which focuses on Spanish-language stage
works. He’s also gearing up for his debut in the Houston Shakespeare Festival
playing Casca in “Julius Caesar” and Iachimo in “Cymbeline.” The plays run Aug.
1 – 10 at Houston’s Miller Outdoor Theatre.

“It’s wonderful to be back,” said Cubria, who graduated with a bachelor’s
degree in theatre in 2006. “I can’t think of a better way to spend my summer. I
am working with extremely intelligent students, who have a sincere appreciation
for theater. And, in a sense, I get to be a student again as I work with two of
my UH mentors with the Houston Shakespeare Festival.”

Cubria moved to New York City last fall but eagerly accepted the invitation
to participate in “Exploraciones Dramticas.” This summer program is presented by
Houston-based non-profit organization Wonderworks in collaboration with UH. Now
in its second year, “Exploraciones” offers bilingual high school students an
opportunity to study, discuss and even perform classic and contemporary
Spanish-language dramatic works.

“When many young students think of the theater, they immediately think New
York or London. I want to show them that many great theater works also are
rooted in South America, Mexico and Spain,” Cubria said. “I also want them to
explore these plays as they were written and performed in Spanish, so they can
expand their own knowledge of the language.”

While his days are focused on teaching the works of Jorge Luis Borges and
Pedro Calderon de la Barca, his afternoons and evenings are spent revisiting the
Bard. Although he will make his Houston Shakespeare Festival debut, he is well
versed in the legendary wordsmith’s material. He became very familiarized with
Shakespeare through UH’s theater curriculum and his participation in Houston’s
Shakespeare Outreach, which presents programs and residencies free to schools
and other institutions throughout the city. He also starred as Lysander in UH’s
spring 2005 production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Lyndall Finley
Wortham Theatre.

The festival reunites Cubria with his former UH professors Carolyn Houston
Boone, associate professor of theatre, and Sidney Berger, the John and Rebecca
Moores Professor in the School of Theatre & Dance. Berger is directing
“Julius Caesar” while Boone helms “Cymbeline.”

“He has an unrestrained zest for the theater,” Berger said. “I had no
hesitation to casting him in good roles while he was a student and am delighted
he is participating in this year’s Houston Shakespeare Festival. His passion is
infectious, and I think both his cast mates and workshop students will embrace
his energy.”

Cubria was born in Mexico City but raised in Houston. After high school, he
returned to Mexico as a human rights activist for Amnesty International, but his
dreams of becoming the next revolutionary quickly faded.

“Like so many middle-class Latino teenagers, I envisioned myself as the next
Che Guevara, but I realized that I was not going to save the world,” Cubria
said. “I thought I’d get my head together and attend a semester at UH. I took an
acting class with Carolyn Boone just for fun. As soon as she began talking, I
knew that acting was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”

Boone and Berger groomed him for starring roles in university main stage
productions at UH. His gift for comedy made him a go to actor when casting for
the lively Children’s Theatre Festival (including a starring role in Boone’s
“The Princess and the Pea”), but his serious side was reflected in the UH
student group he co-founded, Unheard Voices. The group continues to focus on
works by and about minorities, as well student-written plays. Productions
starring Cubria included “Out,” written by student Greg Hundemer, which depicted
a young man coming to terms with his homosexuality.

After graduating, Cubria developed an unexpected cult following when he
portrayed Count Pelicula, a Saturday night horror host on Channel 55’s “Count
Pelicula’s Theatre of Horror.” With his hair slicked back, face in white make-up
and wearing a black cape, he and other UH acting alums presented film classics
such as “Frankenstein” and “Dracula.” The show was cancelled last year, but the
character left a mark on the Houston media landscape. So much so, Cubria still
gets fan mail.

“We had no idea what we were doing,” he said. “I had never seen a late night
horror host, so me and my friends just tried to be funny. Apparently, people
liked us. I got about 30 emails a week and still get messages from people who
are sad we’re off the air and requesting autographed pictures.”

Now in the Big Apple, Cubria is starring on off-off-Broadway productions
including a recent production of Nilo Cruz’ Pulitzer-winning “Anna in the
Tropics.” He also appeared on a recent edition of Tru-TV’s “Rich and Reckless.”

About the University of HoustonThe University of
Houston, Texas’ premier metropolitan research and teaching institution, is home
to more than 40 research centers and institutes and sponsors more than 300
partnerships with corporate, civic and governmental entities. UH, the most
diverse research university in the country, stands at the forefront of
education, research and service with more than 35,000 students.